The ECHR has found Russia guilty of war crimes in the 2008 Russo-Georgian War

Almost 13 years on from the 2008 Russo-Georgia war, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) concluded on January 21, 2021, that Russia breached six articles of the European Convention on Human Rights, in the aftermath of the Russo-Georgian War of August 2008.

Georgia appealed the ECHR on August 11, 2008, a day before signing the EU-mediated six-point ceasefire agreement with Russia. In the application lodged by Georgia, Tbilisi claimed Russia violated eight articles of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Court found that Russia had violated the following articles: The right to life (Article 2); Prohibition of torture, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (Article 3); The right to liberty and security (Article 5); The right to protection of private and family life (Article 8); Protection of property (Article 1 of Additional Protocol 1); Freedom of movement (Article 2 of Protocol No. 4).

The judgment, given by the court addressing the inter-state complaint lodged by Georgia against Russia, said events following the ceasefire agreement of August 12, 2008, ending the active phase of the war, fell within the Russian jurisdiction for the purposes of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The ECHR found that Russia exercised an “effective control” over the “buffer zone”, the area beyond the occupied territory of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, during the period from August 12 to October 10, 2008, the date of the official withdrawal of Russian troops from those areas.

According to the Court decision, however, the events occurring during the active phase of hostilities (August 8 to 12, 2008) had not fallen within the jurisdiction of Russia, as it was not possible to speak of “effective control” over an area during the international armed conflict involving the military operations. The Court has therefore declared inadmissible the part of Georgia’s application which claimed that Russia was legally responsible for the acts committed on August 8-12.

According to some, Georgia is set to continue its legal battle against Russia in the UN courts, with options in both the ICJ and the ICC being carefully considered.

As a result of the 2008 Russo-Georgian war:

• 412 killed on the Georgian side – including 170 military servicemen, 14 policemen and 228 civilians

• ● 2,232 wounded on the Georgian side – including 1,045 military servicemen and 1,187 civilians

• ● 3 journalists killed, six journalists wounded

• ● 130,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) – out of which 26,000 are still denied the right of return. [Overall, the number of IDPs from both occupied regions is now close to half a million]

• ● 35,000 houses burned or destroyed

• 125 more villages have been occupied since the August 2008 war

Georgia’s richest man and the leader of the ruling Georgian Dream party leaves politics for good… once again

On January 11, in a lengthy letter, Bidzina Ivanishvili, Georgia's richest man, the founder and chairman of the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party, announced his retirement from politics.

“I think that my mission has been fulfilled. I made the decision to finally quit the politics and move completely away from the reins of power. I am leaving the post of party chairman, as well as the party itself, and will return to my pre-2011 private lifestyle” - read the opening part of Ivanishvili's letter. According to Ivanishvili, his entry into politics had two main goals: first - to end Saakashvili’s regime, and second - to save the country's Euro-Atlantic course. Ivanishvili believes that both of these goals have been successfully achieved. In addition, Ivanishvili emphasized his personal motivation to leave politics. Due to his age (he is turning 65), he desires to spend more time with his family and look after his personal life.

It should be noted that this is not the first time Ivanishvili is quitting politics. He first announced his retirement from politics in 2013, after serving as the country's prime minister for a year, and ruled out any possibility of his return in the future. But, under the pretext of avoiding internal strife within the GD, Ivanishvili soon returned to politics, initially on an informal basis, and subsequently with a formal status (party chairman).

Ivanishvili's departure from the ruling party was particularly reverberating amid the country's political crisis. The opposition claims that the last parliamentary election (held on October 31, 2020) was rigged, and is therefore boycotting the parliament and calling for new elections. At times like this, the departure of the ruling party's chairman, and the leader with “excessive public support” (as Ivanishvili calls it), may further weaken the positions of the GD and deepen the existing political crisis. Consequently, there are questions as to why Bidzina Ivanishvili decided to leave politics right now and how this move could affect the GD and Georgian politics in general.

In an interview with Georgian Public Broadcaster (GPB), Bidzina Ivanishvili specified that he no longer intends to maintain any political ties with the GD: "I am no longer going to consult the team on political issues. They will not call me, I will not, in any way, criticize them and I will not make any public speech." Ivanishvili also explained why he is not going to return to party politics. "Now, if the team is in trouble and I return, it will be incomprehensible. I did what I could for the party and now I am leaving. If I have to come back again, it means that I could not do something right and if I could not do it, why should I come back? It is simple - ie. I did not do well."

After Ivanishvili announced that he was leaving politics, cutting off all ties with the party and wasn’t not even going to consult them, the GD unanimously elected Irakli Kobakhidze as the party chairman. In other words, the first independent decision of the party after Ivanishvili's departure was to unanimously elect a candidate supported by Ivanishvili who is not a popular figure even within the party and has low electoral support (according to the NDI public opinion polls). Kobakhidze has proven over the years that he is one of Ivanishvili's most loyal subordinates and consequently, leaving such a candidate as the leader of the party raises questions about the complete distancing of Ivanishvili from the GD.

Many in the Georgian opposition and expert community believe that Ivanishvili’s departure from politics, amid the current political crises, may exacerbate the legitimacy crisis for the GD as it was mainly Bidzina Ivanishvili who aggregated the electoral support for the GD in the October 2020 parliamentary elections.

Anti-Turkish manipulation: misquoting and misinterpreting. The 11-17 January edition of the newspaper Asaval-Dasavali published an article in which the Treaty of Kars was assessed as a threat of Adjara breaking away from Georgia. According to the author, a certain provision of the treaty indicates that the population of Batumi is allowed to "establish a land law in accordance with their religious rights” and therefore may require the enactment of rules established by Turkish law. Moreover, the article includes a distorted quote of Tariel Nakaidze, a member of the European Georgia party and former chair of the Georgian Muslims Union, and also exaggerates the number of ethnic Turks that received citizenship in Georgia. See the debunking of these claims by Myth Detector.

Distorted quote of the new chairman of Georgia’s ruling party. On January 11 an old post on the facebook page “Liberastuli Seni” (liberal disease) was re-shared, which included a photo of the Head of the Georgian Dream party with the following quote: “I do not know what traditional values are, it is dangerous to talk about that./I.Kobakhidze/”. In fact, Kobakhidze was referring to the problem of writing national consciousness into the constitution, not about traditional values in general, and the quote was published out of context. The post, originally published on July 1, 2020, was re-shared following the announcement that Irakli Kobakhidze was to replace Bidzina Ivanishvili as the Head of the Georgian Dream.

Misinformation about Biden supporting Saakashvili. On January 14 the online outlet publishers.ge published an article quoting a post from the UNM party supporter which stated that the Biden Administration had called for free and fair elections and the peaceful transfer of power. The post and article included photos of Biden and Saakashvili, former president of Georgia. Myth Detector revealed that the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives Gregory Meeks had been speaking about the necessity of free elections in Georgia in general, and had neither mentioned Saakashvili nor the UNM.

Tengiz Tsertsvadze about the efficiency of the Chinese vaccine

On January 9, Director General of the Center for Infectious Diseases, Tengiz Tsertsvadze mentioned to Formula News that the Georgian state does not have enough resources to import widely used “Pfizer” and “Moderna” vaccines because of complex logistics. According to his statement, there were talks about bringing British “AstraZeneca” and one of the Chinese vaccines to Georgia. Hereby, he specified that the rating of Chinese vaccines is quite high all over the world, and since this virus originated in China, the Chinese are better aware of its structure and characteristics.

Nevertheless, the precedents of other countries and the international studies prove the inefficiency of the two notorious Chinese vaccines: “Sinovac” and “Sinopharm”. Sinopharm is owned by the Chinese state company conducting controversial clinical trials. It has never revealed the results of the third phase of the study and its use has already been suspended in some states. In Brazil, Sinovac has also proved to be less effective than previously announced.

At this stage, the Georgian government refuses to give details about which vaccines are under consideration and through which providers they are planning to import them.

Vasil Maghlaperidze as a Deputy Chairperson of the ruling party

On January 16, after Ivanishvili’s resignation, Vasil Maghlaperidze, a former Director-General of Georgia's Public Broadcaster, was appointed as a deputy chairperson of the Georgian Dream party and a member of the Political Council. During his presence in the GPB, he has been accused by opposition media and NGOs of corruption and other dubious activities such as the non-competitive appointment of journalists, ambiguous tenders, loyal editorial policy to the government, vague reforms, closure of the Bureau of European affairs, state budget waste and so on. Following his resignation, Maghlaperidze claimed that he would work on educational projects and never intended to hold any position in the executive or legislative branch. However, he accepted the offer from the GD leaders claiming that "it is to organize the work of the party and strengthen its structures".

The European Values Centre for Security Policy, in cooperation with the Atlantic Council DRFLab, Civic Idea, The Georgian Reform Association (GRASS), and Media Development Foundation, has published the report “MAPPING RESEARCH: COMPARING FOREIGN INFLUENCE IN GEORGIA.” The Report monitors foreign country influences in Georgia, whether through state institutions, NGOs, media, political parties, or the Church. This paper aims to bring attention to a broad spectrum of problems, as well as campaigns and activities implemented and sponsored by third countries, ranging from political infiltration to corrosive capital-flows with political goals. The report is available here.

GRASS has published a September-October issue of the Disinfometer series of reports analyzing pro-Russian and anti-Western propaganda in Georgia. The publication includes narratives spread by the Kremlin and its influence agents in the pre-election period. The report exposes sources of misinformation/propaganda and its scope in the Georgian online ecosystem during the election campaign. According to the findings of the report, the sources of misinformation have increased significantly. However, on the other hand, as a result of Facebook's third-party fact-checking program launched in Georgia in September, the distribution of some propaganda sources on Facebook has decreased. The report highlights strategic propaganda narratives on issues such as the EU, NATO, the US, etc. The full report in English is available here.

The Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies (GFSIS - Rondeli Foundation) published a review of 2020 developments in Georgia’s breakaway region of Abkhazia. The article covers topics such as the political crisis and the resignation of the “President”; early “elections” and a new “President”; challenges caused or exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic; energy crisis and cryptocurrency issues, the visit of de facto President Bzhania to Russia and his meeting with Vladimir Putin; agreement on Abkhazia’s deeper integration with Russia; and messages from the de facto President and his administration about the new possible format of negotiations with Tbilisi. Additionally, the author provides a forecast for 2021 developments in Abkhazia.

The Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies (GFSIS - Rondeli Foundation) published the 6th and 7th issues of its publication series “China’s Activities in the South Caucasus”. The publications cover bilateral political relations between China and the South Caucasus states, including deepening economic and cultural ties. There was a prominent case when the Ambassador of Poland to Georgia publicly expressed his concerns about Georgia's cooperation with China using EU funds, referring to Chinese companies winning tenders in the projects funded by the European Investment Bank. Full issues are available here and here.

WITH THE SUPPORT OF: